The best thing about working with Qlik Sense is how dynamic the apps are. As a user, you can drill down to the data you need to answer your question. This is done by using filters. When working with filters, you will notice that when you exit the app, whatever filters you have applied will be reset to default. This means that if you’re pulling data or screenshots of visualisations regularly for reporting purposes, you may have to apply the same filters each time. This is where the ‘bookmarks’ feature comes in handy. Bookmarks are a way to get Qlik Sense to remember your filters in the app so that you can apply them again with just one click of a button. This article will cover:
- How to create a bookmark
- How to access bookmarks
How to create a bookmark
Bookmarks are created from within a sheet. To create a bookmark, go to a sheet and set the filters you want Qlik Sense to remember in this bookmark. Then click ‘Bookmarks’ > ‘Create new bookmark’ in the sheet bar. This will bring up a ‘Create bookmark’ pop-up:
There are a few inputs you need to specify before you click ‘Create’.
- Bookmark name: specify the name that makes sense to you. This is how you will find the bookmark in the future.
- Bookmark description: add a description so that it’s always clear what the bookmark is for in the future.
- Bookmark options:
- Save sheet location: if ticked, the bookmark remembers which sheet in the app you were on. When using the bookmark in the future, this is the sheet you will be taken to.
- Save layout: if ticked, the bookmark remembers things like sorting of tables or any changes you made to the way charts are displayed.
- Save variable state in bookmarks: if ticked, this saves any variables you toggled. As a user, variables will look to you like buttons, input fields and range selectors. They are not like filters in that you won’t see them in the selections bar, but they vary what you see in visualisations. If you’re unsure whether to tick this when saving a bookmark, speak to the app’s developer.
Once all the inputs have been specified, click ‘Create’.
Note on dates. If you use the date range picker filter to choose a predefined set of dates, such as ‘Yesterday’, it’s natural to think that saving this in a bookmark will always give you yesterday when you use it in the future. However, this is not correct. When you save dates in a bookmark, if yesterday was the 15th of June 2022, using this bookmark in the future will always filter the app by the 15th of June 2022. If you need to vary the dates each time you’re getting your reporting data, for example, you always need the last seven days, we recommend not saving dates in the bookmark. Instead, use the bookmark for other filters and then apply the date filter manually.
How to access bookmarks
You can access bookmarks from the app overview or from within a sheet.
When in the app overview, click the ‘Bookmarks’ button in the app content selector to see a list of ‘Public bookmarks’ and your own private bookmarks. Note that public bookmarks are created by developers or users with write permissions on the app.
When in any sheet you can access the bookmarks by clicking the ‘Bookmarks’ button in the sheet bar. You will still see the public bookmarks as well as your private bookmarks here.
